As in Strasbourg, an interesting rainy day activity in Amsterdam is to take a boat trip around the city.

I call it a rainy day activity because when the weather is nice you will obviously prefer to be out cycling rather than just sitting in a boat.

Rederij Plas

There are several companies that do canal boat tours, leaving from the piers at the street called Damrak near the central station. I took a tour by a company called Rederij Plas, which was fine but I have no way of knowing if it was better or worse than any of the other tours.

One of the “Seven Bridges”

As in Strasbourg, I was the only person on the boat who had a map and was following along to keep track of where we were going. I am always amazed that nobody else does this, as one of the main purposes of such a tour is to start getting oriented and start learning your way around.

The opera house in the rain, as seen from the tour boat

At thirty-five different places on the tour there were recorded commentaries in Dutch, German, French and English, which were fun because I could try to understand some of the Dutch (which I have never learned, but can sometimes figure out from German and English), and then use the other three languages to see if I was right.

One of the tourist boats going past the opera house (not on the same day, obviously)

My photos in this post are from 2006. I revised the text in 2017.

Next: Cycling in Amsterdam
See also: Rainy day boat trip in Strasbourg.